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Areopagitica
A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing to the
Parliament of England
John Milton
This
is
true
liberty,
when free-born men,
Having
to
advise
the
public, may
speak
free, Which he
who can, and will, deserves high praise; Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace: What can be
juster in a state than this?
Euripid. Hicetid.
They, who to states and governors of the Commonwealth direct their speech, High Court of
Parliament,
or,
wanting
such
access
in
a
private
condition,
write
that
which
they
foresee
may
advance the public good; I suppose them, as at the beginning of no mean endeavour, not a little
altered and moved inwardly in their minds: some with doubt of what
will be the success, others
with fear of what will be the censure; some with hope, others with confidence of what they have
to speak. And me perhaps each of these dispositions, as the subject was whereon I entered, may
have at other times variously affected; and likely might in these foremost expressions now also
disclose which
of them swayed most, but that the very attempt of this address thus made, and
the
thought
of
whom
it
hath
recourse
to,
hath
got
the
power within
me
to
a
passion,
far
more
welcome than incidental to a preface.
Which though I stay not to confess ere any ask, I shall be blameless,
if
it be no
other than
the
joy
and
gratulation
which
it
brings
to
all
who
wish
and
promote
their
country’s
liberty;
whereof this whole discourse proposed will be a certain testimony, if not a trophy. For this is not
the liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the Commonwealth
—
that
let
no
man
in
this
world
expect;
but when
complaints
are
freely
heard,
deeply
considered
and
speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound
of civil
liberty attained that wise men look for. To
which if I now manifest by the very sound of this which I shall utter, that we are already in good
part arrived, and yet from such a steep disadvantage of tyranny and superstition grounded into
our principles as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will be attributed first, as is
most
due,
to
the
strong
assistance
of
God
our
deliverer,
next
to
your
faithful
guidance
and
undaunted
wisdom,
Lords
and
Commons
of
Engla
nd.
Neither
is
it
in
God’s
esteem
the
diminution
of
his
glory,
when
honourable
things
are
spoken
of
good
men
and
worthy
magistrates;
which
if
I
now
first
should
begin
to
do,
after
so
fair
a
progress
of
your
laudable
deeds, and such a long obligement upon the whole realm to your indefatigable virtues, I might
be justly reckoned among the tardiest, and the unwillingest of them that praise ye.

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Nevertheless there being three principal things, without which all praising is but courtship
and flattery: First, when that only is praised which
is solidly worth praise: next, when greatest
likelihoods are brought that such things are truly and really in those persons to whom they are
ascribed: the other, when he who praises, by showing that such his actual persuasion is of whom
he
writes,
can
demonstrate
that
he
flatters
not;
the
former
two
of
these
I
have
heretofore
endeavoured, rescuing the employment from him who went about to impair your merits with a
trivial
and
malignant
encomium;
the
latter
as
belonging
chiefly
to
mine
own
acquittal,
that
whom I so extolled I did not flatter, hath been reserved opportunely to this occasion.

For he who
freely magnifies what hath been
nobly done,
and
fears not to
declare as freely
what
might
be
done
better,
gives
ye
the
best
covenant
of
his
fidelity;
and
that
his
loyalest
affection
and
his
hope
waits
on
your
proceedings.
His
highest
praising
is
not
flattery,
and
his
plainest
advice
is
a
kind
of
praising.
For
though
I
should
affirm
and
hold
by
argument, that
it
would
fare
better
with
truth,
with
learning
and
the
Commonwealth,
if
one
of
your
published
Orders, which I should name, were called in; yet at the same time it could not but much redound
to the lustre of your mild and equal government, whenas private persons are hereby animated t
o
think
ye
better
pleased
with
public
advice,
than
other
statists
have
been
delighted
heretofore
with public flattery. And men will then see what difference there is between the magnanimity of
a
triennial
Parliament,
and
that
jealous
haughtiness
of
prelates
and
cabin
counsellors
that
usurped of late, whenas they shall observe ye in the midst of your victories and successes more
gently brooking written exceptions against a voted Order than other courts, which had produced
nothing
worth
memory
but
the
weak
ostentation
of
wealth,
would
have
endured
the
least
signified dislike at any sudden proclamation.
If I should thus far presume upon the meek demeanour of your civil and gentle greatness,
Lords and Commons, as what your published Order hath directly said, that to gainsay, I might
defend
myself
with
ease,
if
any
should
accuse
me
of
being
new
or
insolent,
did
they
but
know
how much better I find ye esteem it to imitate the old and elegant humanity of Greece, than the
barbaric pride
of a
Hunnish and Norwegian stateliness. And out of those ages, to whose
polite
wisdom
and
letters
we
owe that
we
are
not yet
Goths
and
Jutlanders,
I
could
name
him
who
from his private house wrote that discourse to the Parliament of Athens, that persuades them to
change the form of democracy which was then established. Such honour was done in those days
to men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence, not only in their own country, but in
other
lands,
that
cities
and
signiories
heard
them
gladly,
and
with
great
respect,
if
they
had
aught in public to admonish the state. Thus did Dion Prusaeus, a stranger and a private orator,
counsel
the
Rhodians
against
a
former
edict;
and I
abound
with
other
like examples,
which
to
set here would be superfluous.
But
if
from
the
industry
of
a
life
wholly
dedicated
to
studious
labours,
and
those
natural
endowments haply not the worst for two and fifty degrees of northern latitude, so much must be
derogated, as to count me not equal to any of those who had this privilege, I would obtain to be

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thought
not
so
inferior,
as
yourselves
are
superior
to
the
most
of
them
who
received
their
counsel:
and
how
far
you
excel
them,
be
assured,
Lords
and
Commons,
there
can
no
greater
testimony
appear,
than
when your
prudent
spirit
acknowledges
and
obeys
the voice
of
reason
from
what
quarter
soever
it
be
heard
speaking;
and
renders ye
as
willing
to
repeal
any
Act
of
your own setting forth, as any set forth by your predecessors.
If
ye
be
thus
resolved,
as
it
were
injury
to
think
ye
were
not,
I
know
not
what
should
withhold me from presenting ye with a fit instance wherein to show both that love of truth which
ye eminently profess, and that uprightness of your judgment which
is not wont to be partial to
yourselves; by judging over again that Order which ye have ordained to regulate printing:
—
that
no book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed, unless the same be first approved and
licensed
by
such,
or
at
least
one
of
such,
as
shall
be
thereto
appointed.
For
that
part
which
preserves justly every man’s copy to h
imself, or provides for the poor, I touch not, only wish they
be not made pretences to abuse and persecute honest and painful men, who offend not in either
of these particulars. But that other clause of licensing books, which we thought had died with his
brother quadragesimal and matrimonial when the prelates expired, I shall now attend with such
a homily, as shall lay before ye, first the inventors of it to be those whom ye will be loath to own;
next what is to be thought in general of reading, whatever sort the books be; and that this Order
avails
nothing
to
the
suppressing
of
scandalous,
seditious,
and
libellous
books,
which
were
mainly
intended
to
be
suppressed.
Last,
that
it
will
be
primely
to
the
discouragement
of
all
learning, and the stop
of truth, not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we
know already, but by hindering and cropping the discovery that might be yet further made both
in religious and civil wisdom.
I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have
a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison,
and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors. For books are not absolutely dead things, but do
contain a potency of life
in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay,
they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction
of that
living
intellect that bred
them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon’s teeth;
and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand,
unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a
reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book, kills
reason
itself, kills the
image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is
the
precious
life-blood
of
a
master
spirit,
embalmed
and
treasured
up
on
purpose
to
a
life
beyond
life.
’Tis
true,
no
age
can
restore
a
life,
whereof
perhaps
there
is
no
great
loss;
and
revolutions
of
ages
do
not
oft
recover
the
loss
of
a
rejected
truth,
for
the
want
of
which
whole
nations fare the worse.
We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of public
men, how we spill that seasoned
life
of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a

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kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a martyrdom, and if it extend to the whole
impression,
a
kind
of
massacre;
whereof the
execution
ends
not
in
the
slaying
of
an
elemental
life, but strikes at that ethereal and fifth essence, the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality
rather
than
a
life.
But
lest
I
should
be
condemned
of
introducing
license,
while
I
oppose
licensing, I refuse not the pains to be so
much
historical, as will serve to show what hath been
done
by
ancient
and
famous
commonwealths
against
this
disorder,
till
the
very
time
that
this
project of licensing crept out of the Inquisition, was catched up by our prelates, and hath caught
some of our presbyters.
In Athens, where books and wits were ever busier than in any other part of Greece, I find
but
only
two
sorts
of
writings
which
the
magistrate
cared
to
take
notice
of;
those
either
blasphemous
and
atheistical,
or
libellous.
Thus
the
books
of
Protagoras
were
by the
judges
of
Areopagus
commanded
to
be
burnt,
and
himself
banished
the
territory
for
a
discourse
begun
with his confessing
not to know
WHETHER THERE
WERE GODS, OR WHETHER NOT. And
against defaming,
it was decreed that none should be traduced by name, as was the manner of
Vetus Comoedia, whereby we may guess how they censured libelling. And this course was quick
enough, as Cicero writes, to quell both the desperate wits of other atheists, and the open way of
defaming, as the event showed. Of other sects and opinions, though tending to voluptuousness,
and the denying of divine Providence, they took no heed.
Therefore
we
do
not
read
that
either
Epicurus,
or
that
libertine
school
of
Cyrene,
or
what
the
Cynic
impudence
uttered,
was ever
questioned
by
the
laws.
Neither
is
it
recorded
that
the
writings
of
those
old
comedians
were
suppressed,
though
the
acting
of
them
were
forbid;
and
that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes, the
loosest of them all, to his royal scholar
Dionysius, is commonly known, and may be excused, if holy Chrysostom, as is reported, nightly
studied
so
much
the
same
author
and
had
the
art
to
cleanse
a
scurrilous
vehemence
into
the
style of a rousing sermon.
That
other
leading
city
of
Greece,
Lacedaemon,
considering
that
Lycurgus
their
lawgiver
was
so
addicted
to
elegant
learning,
as
to
have
been
the
first
that
brought
out
of
Ionia
the
scattered
works
of
Homer,
and
sent
the
poet
Thales
from
Crete
to
prepare
and
mollify
the
Spartan
surliness
with
his
smooth
songs
and
odes,
the
better
to
plant
among
them
law
and
civility,
it
is
to
be
wondered
how
museless
and
unbookish
they
were,
minding
nought
but
the
feats of war. There needed no licensing of books among them, for they disliked all but their own
laconic apophthegms, and took a slight occasion to chase Archilochus out of their city, perhaps
for composing in a higher strain than their own soldierly ballads and roundels could reach to. Or
if
it
were
for
his
broad verses,
they
were
not
therein
so
cautious
but
they
were
as
dissolute
in
their promiscuous conversing; whence Euripides affirms in Andromache, that their women were
all
unchaste. Thus much may give us light after what sort of books were prohibited among the
Greeks.

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The Romans also, for many ages trained up
only to a military roughness resembling most
the Lacedaemonian guise, knew of
learning little but what their twelve Tables, and the Pontific
College
with
their
augurs
and
flamens
taught
them
in
religion
and
law;
so
unacquainted
with
other
learning,
that
when
Carneades
and
Critolaus,
with
the
Stoic
Diogenes,
coming
ambassadors
to
Rome,
took
thereby
occasion
to
give
the
city
a taste
of
their
philosophy,
they
were suspected for seducers by no less a man than Cato the Censor, who moved it in the Senate
to dismiss them speedily, and to banish all such Attic babblers out of Italy. But Scipio and others
of the noblest senators withstood him and his
old Sabine austerity; honoured and
admired the
men; and the censor himself at last, in his old age, fell to the study
of that whereof before he was
so
scrupulous.
And
yet
at the
same
time
Naevius
and
Plautus,
the
first
Latin
comedians,
had
filled
the
city
with
all
the
borrowed
scenes
of
Menander
and
Philemon.
Then
began
to
be
considered
there
also
what
was
to
be
done
to
libellous
books
and
authors;
for
Naevius
was
quickly cast into prison for his unbridled pen, and released by the tribunes upon his recantation;
we read also that libels were burnt, and the makers punished by Augustus. The like severity, no
doubt,
was
used,
if
aught
were
impiously
written
against
their
esteemed
gods.
Except
in
these
two points, how the world went in books, the magistrate kept no reckoning.

And
therefore
Lucretius
without
impeachment
versifies
his
Epicurism
to
Memmius,
and
had the honour to be set forth the second time by Cicero, so great a father of the Commonwealth;
although
himself
disputes
against
that
opinion
in
his
own
writings.
Nor
was
the
satirical
sharpness or naked plainness of Lucilius,
or Catullus,
or Flaccus, by any order prohibit
ed. And
for
matters
of
state,
the
story
of
Titus Livius,
though
it
extolled
that
part
which
Pompey
held,
was not therefore suppressed by Octavius Caesar of the other faction. But that Naso was by him
banished
in his
old age, for the wanton poems
of his youth, was but a mere covert of state over
some secret cause: and besides, the books were neither banished nor called
in. From hence we
shall meet with
little else but tyranny in the Roman empire, that we may not marvel, if
not so
often
bad
as
good
books
were
silenced.
I
shall
therefore
deem
to
have
been
large
enough,
in
producing
what
among
the
ancients
was
punishable
to
write;
save
only
which,
all
other
arguments were free to treat on.
By this time the emperors were become Christians, whose discipline
in this point I do
not
find
to
have
been
more
severe
than
what
was
formerly
in
practice.
The
books
of
those
whom
they took to be grand heretics were examined, refuted, and condemned in the general Councils;
and
not
till
then
were
prohibited,
or
burnt,
by
authority
of the
emperor.
As
for the
writings
of
heathen
authors,
unless
they
were
plain
invectives
against
Christianity,
as
those
of
Porphyrius
and
Proclus,
they
met
with
no
interdict
that
can
be
cited,
till
about
the
year
400,
in
a
Carthaginian Council, wherein bishops themselves were forbid to read the books of Gentiles, but
heresies
they
might
read:
while
others
long
before
them,
on
the
contrary,
scrupled
more
the
books of
heretics than of Gentiles. And that the primitive Councils and bishops were wont only
to
declare
what
books
were
not
commendable,
passing
no
further,
but
leaving
it
to
each
one’s

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conscience
to
read
or to
lay
by, till
after the year
800,
is
observed
already
by
Padre
Paolo,
the
great unmasker of the Trentine Council.
After
which
time
the
Popes
of
Rome,
engrossing
what
they
pleased
of
political
rule
into
their
own
hands,
extended
their
dominion
over
men’s
eyes,
as
they
had
before
over
their
judgments,
burning
and
prohibiting
to
be
read
what
they
fancied
not;
yet
sparing
in
their
censures, and the books not many which they so dealt with: till Martin V., by his bull, not only
prohibited, but was the first that excommunicated the reading of heretical books; for about that
time Wickliffe and Huss, growing terrible, were they who first drove the Papal Court to a stricter
policy
of
prohibiting.
Which
course
Leo
X.
and
his
successors
followed,
until
the
Council
of
Trent
and
the
Spanish
Inquisition
engendering
together
brought
forth,
or
perfected,
those
Catalogues and expurging Indexes, that rake through the entrails of many an
old good author,
with
a
violation
worse
than
any
could
be
offered
to
his
tomb.
Nor
did
they
stay
in
matters
heretical, but any subject that was not to their palate, they either condemned in a Prohibition, or
had it straight into the new purgatory of an index.
To
fill
up
the
measure
of
encroachment,
their
last
invention
was
to
ordain
that
no
book,
pamphlet, or paper should be printed (as if St. Peter had bequeathed them the keys of the press
also
out
of
Paradise)
unless
it
were
approved
and
licensed
under
the
hands
of
two
or
three
glutton friars. For example:
Let the Chancellor Cini be pleased to see if in this present work be contained aught that
may withstand the printing.
VINCENT RABBATTA, Vicar of Florence.
I
have
seen
this
present
work,
and
find
nothing
athwart
the
Catholic
faith
and
good
manners: in witness whereof I have given, etc.
NICOLO GINI, Chancellor of Florence.
Attending the precedent relation, it is allowed that this present work of Davanzati may
be printed.
VINCENT RABBATTA, etc.
It may be printed, July 15.
FRIAR
SIMON
MOMPEI
D’AMELIA,

Chancellor of the Holy Office in Florence.
Sure
they
have
a
conceit,
if
he
of
the
bottomless
pit
had
not
long
since
broke
prison,
that
this
quadruple
exorcism
would
bar
him
down.
I
fear
their
next
design
will
be
to
get
into
their

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custody
the
licensing
of
that
which
they
say
Claudius
intended,
but
went
not
through
with.
Vouchsafe to see another of their forms, the Roman stamp:
Imprimatur, If it seem good to the reverend Master of the Holy Palace.
BELCASTRO, Vicegerent.
Imprimatur, Friar Nicolo Rodolphi, Master of the Holy Palace.
Sometimes five Imprimaturs are seen together dialogue-wise in the piazza of one title-page,
complimenting
and
ducking
each
to
other
with
their
shaven
reverences,
whether
the
author,
who stands by in
perplexity at the foot of
his epistle, shall to the press or to the sponge. These
are the pretty responsories, these are the dear antiphonies, that so bewitched of late our prelates
and
their
chaplains
with
the
goodly
echo
they
made;
and
besotted
us
to the
gay
imitation
of
a
lordly Imprimatur,
one
from
Lambeth
House,
another
from
the
west end
of
Paul’s;
so
apishly
Romanizing,
that
the
word
of
command
still
was
set
down
in
Latin;
as
if
the
learned
grammatical
pen
that
wrote
it
would
cast
no
ink
without
Latin;
or
perhaps,
as
they
thought,
because no vulgar tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit of an Imprimatur, but rather,
as
I
hope,
for
that
our
English,
the
language
of
men
ever
famous
and
foremost
in
the
achievements
of
liberty,
will
not
easily
find
servile
letters
enow
to
spell
such
a
dictatory
presumption English.
And thus ye have the inventors and the original of book-licensing ripped up and drawn as
lineally as any pedigree. We have it not, that can be heard of, from any ancient state, or polity or
church; nor by any statute left us by our ancestors elder or later; nor from the modern custom of
any
reformed
city
or
church
abroad,
but
from
the
most
anti-christian
council
and
the
most
tyrannous
inquisition
that
ever
inquired.
Till
then
books
were
ever
as
freely
admitted
into
the
world as any other birth; the issue of the brain was no more stifled than the issue of the womb:
no
envious
Juno
sat
cross-
legged
over the
nativity
of
any
man’s
intellectual
offspring;
but
if

it
proved a monster, who denies, but that it was justly burnt, or sunk into the sea? But that a book,
in
worse
condition
than
a
peccant
soul,
should
be
to
stand
before
a
jury
ere
it
be
born
to
the
world,
and
undergo
yet
in
darkness
the
judgment
of
Radamanth
and
his
colleagues,
ere
it
can
pass
the
ferry
backward
into
light,
was
never
heard
before,
till
that
mysterious
iniquity,
provoked
and
troubled
at
the
first
entrance
of
Reformation,
sought
out
new
limbos
and
new
hells
wherein
they
might
include
our
books
also
within
the
number
of
their
damned.
And
this
was
the
rare
morsel
so
officiously
snatched
up,
and
so
ill- favouredly
imitated
by
our
inquisiturient bishops, and the attendant minorites their chaplains. That ye like not now these
most certain authors of this
licensing
order, and that all sinister intention was far distant from
your thoughts, when ye were importuned the passing it, all men who know the integrity of your
actions, and how ye honour truth, will clear ye readily.

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But some will say, what though the inventors were bad, the thing for all that may be good?
It may so; yet if that thing be no such deep invention, but obvious, and easy for any man to light
on, and yet best and wisest commonwealths through all ages and occasions have forborne to use
it,
and
falsest
seducers
and
oppressors
of
men
were
the
first
who
took
it
up,
and
to
no
other
purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of Reformation; I am of those who believe
it
will
be
a
harder
alchemy
than
Lullius
ever knew,
to
sublimate
any
good
use
out
of
such
an
invention.
Yet
this
only
is
what
I
request
to
gain
from
this
reason,
that
it
may
be
held
a
dangerous
and
suspicious
fruit,
as
certainly
it
deserves,
for
the
tree
that
bore
it,
until
I
can
dissect one by one the properties it has. But I have first to finish, as was propounded, what is to
be thought in general of reading books, whatever sort they be, and whether be more the benefit
or the harm that thence proceeds.
Not
to
insist
upon
the
examples
of
Moses,
Daniel,
and
Paul,
who
were
skilful
in
all
the
learning of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading
their
books
of
all
sorts;
in
Paul
especially,
who
thought
it
no
defilement
to
insert
into
Holy
Scripture
the
sentences
of
three
Greek
poets,
and
one
of
them
a
tragedian;
the
question
was
notwithstanding
sometimes
controverted
among
the
primitive
doctors,
but
with
great
odds
on
that
side
which
affirmed
it
both
lawful
and
profitable;
as
was
then
evidently
perceived,
when
Julian
the
Apostate
and
subtlest
enemy
to
our
faith
made
a
decree
forbidding
Christians
the
study of heathen learning: for, said he, they wound us with our own weapons, and with our own
arts and sciences they overcome us. And indeed the Christians were put so to their shifts by this

crafty means, and so much in danger to decline into all
ignorance, that the two Apollinarii were
fain,
as
a
man
may
say,
to
coin
all
the
seven
liberal
sciences
out
of
the
Bible,
reducing
it
into
divers forms of orations, poems, dialogues, even to the calculating
of a new Christian grammar.
But,
saith
the
historian
Socrates,
the
providence
of
God
provided
better
than
the
industry
of
Apollinarius and his son, by taking away that illiterate law with the life of him who devised it. So
great an injury they then held it to be deprived of Hellenic learning; and thought it a persecution
more
undermining,
and
secretly
decaying
the
Church,
than
the
open
cruelty
of
Decius
or
Diocletian.
And
perhaps
it
was
the
same
politic
drift
that
the
devil
whipped
St.
Jerome
in
a
lenten
dream,
for
reading
Cicero;
or
else
it
was
a
phantasm
bred
by
the
fever
which
had
then
seized
him.
For
had
an
angel
been
his
discipliner,
unless
it
were
for
dwelling
too
much
upon
Ciceronianisms, and had chastised the reading, not the vanity, it had been plainly partial; first to
correct
him
for
grave
Cicero,
and
not
for
scurril
Plautus,
whom
he
confesses
to
have
been
reading, not long before; next to correct him only, and let so many more ancient fathers wax old
in
those
pleasant
and
florid
studies
without
the
lash
of
such
a
tutoring
apparition;
insomuch
that Basil teaches how some good use may be made of Margites, a sportful poem, not now extant,
writ by Homer; and why not then of Morgante, an Italian romance much to the same purpose?

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But
if
it
be
agreed
we
shall
be
tried
by visions,
there
is
a vision
recorded
by
Eusebius,
far
ancienter than this tale of Jerome, to the nun
Eustochium, and, besides,
has nothing of a fever
in
it.
Dionysius Alexandrinus was about the year 240 a person of great name in the Church
for
piety and learning, who had wont to avail himself much against heretics by being conversant in
their books; until a certain presbyter laid it scrupulously to his conscience, how he durst venture
himself
among
those
defiling
volumes.
The
worthy
man,
loath
to
give
offence,
fell
into
a
new
debate with himself what was to be thought; when suddenly a vision sent from God (it is his own
epistle that so avers it) confirmed him in these words: READ ANY BOOKS WHATEVER COME
TO
TH
Y
HANDS,
FOR
THOU
ART
SUFFICIENT
BOTH
TO
JUDGE
ARIGHT
AND
TO
EXAMINE EACH MATTER. To this revelation he assented the sooner, as he confesses, because
it
was
answerable
to
that
of
the
Apostle
to
the
Thessalonians,
PROVE
ALL
THINGS,
HOLD
FAST
THAT
WHICH
IS
GOOD.
And
he
might
have
added
another
remarkable
saying
of
the
same author: TO THE PURE, ALL THINGS ARE PURE; not only meats and drinks, but all kind
of knowledge whether of good or evil; the knowledge cannot defile, nor consequently the books,
if the will and conscience be not defiled.
For books are as meats and viands are; some of good, some of evil substance; and yet God,
in that unapocryphal vision, said without exception, RISE, PETER, KILL AND EAT, leaving the
choice to each man’s discretion.
Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomac
h differ little or nothing
from unwholesome; and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to
occasions of evil.
Bad
meats
will
scarce
breed
good
nourishment
in
the
healthiest
concoction;
but
herein
the
difference is of bad books, that they to a discreet and judicious reader serve in many respects to
discover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. Whereof what better witness can ye expect I
should
produce,
than
one
of
your
own
now
sitting
in
Parliament,
the
chief
of
learned
men
reputed in this land, Mr. Selden; whose volume of natural and national laws proves, not only by
great
authorities
brought
together,
but
by
exquisite
reasons
and
theorems
almost
mathematically
demonstrative, that
all
opinions,
yea
errors,
known,
read,
and
collated,
are
of
main service and assistance toward the speedy attainment of what is truest. I conceive, therefore,
that when God did enlarge the universal diet of man’s body, saving ever the rules of temperance,
he
then
also,
as
before,
left
arbitrary
the
dieting
and
repasting
of
our
minds;
as
wherein
every
mature man might have to exercise his own leading capacity.
How great a virtue is temperance, how much of moment through the whole life of man! Yet
God commits the managing so great a trust, without particular law or prescription, wholly to the
demeanour
of every grown man. And therefore when he himself tabled the Jews
from heaven,
that omer, which was every man’s daily portion of manna,
is computed to have been more than
might have well sufficed the heartiest feeder thrice as many meals. For those actions which enter
into
a
man,
rather
than
issue
out
of
him,
and
therefore
defile
not,
God
uses
not
to
captivate
under a perpetual childhood of prescription, but trusts him with the gift of reason to be his own
chooser; there were but little work left for preaching, if law and compulsion should grow so fast

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upon
those
things
which
heretofore
were
governed
only
by exhortation.
Solomon
informs
us,
that much reading is a weariness to the flesh; but neither he nor
other inspired author tells us
that such or such reading
is unlawful: yet certainly had God thought good to limit us herein, it
had been much more expedient to have told us what was unlawful than what was wearisome. As
for the burning of those Ephesian books by St. Paul’s converts; ’tis replied the books were magic,
the
Syriac
so
renders
them. It was
a
private
act,
a voluntary
act,
and
leaves
us to
a
voluntary
imitation: the men
in remorse burnt those books which were their own; the magistrate by this
example
is
not
appointed;
these
men
practised
the
books,
another
might
perhaps
have
read
them in some sort usefully.
Good and evil we know in the field of this world grow up together almost inseparably; and
the knowledge of good is so involved and interwoven with the knowledge of evil, and in so many
cunning
resemblances
hardly
to
be
discerned,
that
those
confused
seeds
which
were
imposed
upon Psyche as an incessant labour to cull
out, and sort asunder, were not more intermixed. It
was
from
out
the
rind
of
one
apple
tasted,
that
the
knowledge
of
good
and
evil,
as
two
twins
cleaving
together,
leaped
forth
into
the world.
And
perhaps
this
is
that
doom
which
Adam
fell
into
of
knowing
good
and
evil,
that
is
to
say
of
knowing
good
by evil.
As
therefore the
state
of
man
now
is;
what
wisdom
can
there
be
to
choose,
what
continence
to
forbear
without
the
knowledge
of
evil?
He
that
can
apprehend
and
consider
vice
with
all
her
baits
and
seeming
pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the
true warfaring Christian.
I
cannot
praise
a
fugitive
and
cloistered
virtue,
unexercised
and
unbreathed,
that
never
sallies out and sees her adversary but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be
run for,
not without dust and
heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence
into the world, we bring
impurity much rather; that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. That virtue
therefore which is but a youngling
in the contemplation of evil, and knows
not the utmost that
vice promises to her followers, and rejects it,
is but a blank virtue, not a pure; her whiteness is
but
an
excremental
whiteness.
Which
was
the
reason
why
our
sage
and
serious
poet
Spenser,
whom
I
dare
be
known
to
think
a
better
teacher
than
Scotus
or
Aquinas,
describing
true
temperance
under
the
person
of
Guion,
brings
him
in
with
his
palmer
through
the
cave
of
Mammon,
and
the
bower
of
earthly
bliss,
that
he
might
see
and
know,
and
yet
abstain.
Since
therefore the knowledge
and
survey
of vice
is
in
this
world
so
necessary
to
the
constituting
of
human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely,
and
with
less
danger,
scout
into
the
regions
of
sin
and
falsity
than
by
reading
all
manner
of
tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this
is the benefit which
may be had of books
promiscuously read.
But of the harm that may result hence three kinds are usually reckoned. First, is feared the
infection that may spread; but then all human learning and controversy in religious points must
remove
out
of
the
world,
yea
the
Bible
itself;
for
that
ofttimes
relates
blasphemy
not
nicely,
it

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describes the carnal sense of wicked men not unelegantly, it brings in holiest men passionately
murmuring against Providence through all the arguments of Epicurus: in other great disputes it
answers dubiously and darkly to the common reader. And ask a Talmudist what ails the modesty
of
his
marginal
Keri,
that
Moses
and
all
the
prophets
cannot
persuade
him
to
pronounce
the
textual
Chetiv.
For
these
causes
we
all
know
the
Bible
itself
put
by
the
Papist
must
be
next
removed,
as
Clement
of
Alexandria,
and
that
Eusebian
book
of
Evangelic
preparation,
transmitting
our
ears
through
a
hoard
of
heathenish
obscenities
to
receive
the
Gospel.
Who
finds not that Irenaeus, Epiphanius, Jerome, and others discover more heresies than they well
confute, and that oft for heresy which is the truer opinion?

Nor boots it to say for these, and all the heathen writers of greatest infection,
if
it must be
thought
so,
with
whom
is
bound
up
the
life
of
human
learning,
that
they
writ
in
an
unknown
tongue, so long as we are sure those languages are known as well to the worst of men, who are
both most able and most diligent to
instil the poison they suck, first into the courts
of princes,
acquainting them with the choicest delights and criticisms of sin. As perhaps did that Petronius
whom
Nero
called
his
Arbiter,
the
master
of
his
revels;
and
the
notorious
ribald
of
Arezzo,
dreaded and yet dear to the Italian courtiers. I name n
ot him for posterity’s sake, whom Henry
VIII.
named
in
merriment
his
vicar
of
hell.
By
which
compendious
way
all
the
contagion
that
foreign books can infuse will find a passage to the people far easier and shorter than an Indian
voyage, though it could be sailed either by the north of Cataio eastward, or of Canada westward,
while our Spanish licensing gags the English press never so severely.
But on the
other side that infection which
is from books of controversy in religion
is more
doubtful
and
dangerous
to
the
learned
than
to
the
ignorant;
and
yet
those
books
must
be
permitted
untouched
by
the
licenser.
It
will
be
hard
to
instance
where
any
ignorant
man
hath
been ever seduced by papistical book
in
English, unless
it were commended and expounded to
him
by
some
of
that
clergy:
and
indeed
all
such
tractates,
whether
false
or
true,
are
as
the
prophecy
of
Isaiah
was
to
the eunuch,
not
to
be
UNDERSTOOD
WITHOUT
A GUIDE.
But
of
our priests and doctors how many have been corrupted by studying the comments of Jesuits and
Sorbonists, and how fast they could transfuse that corruption into the people, our experience is
both late and sad. It is not forgot, since the acute and distinct Arminius was perverted merely by
the perusing of a nameless discourse written at Delft, which at first he took in hand to confute.
Seeing,
therefore,
that
those
books,
and
those
in
great
abundance,
which
are
likeliest
to
taint both life and doctrine, cannot be suppressed without the fall of learning and of all ability in
disputation,
and
that
these
books
of
either
sort
are
most
and
soonest
catching
to
the
learned,
from whom to the common people whatever is heretical or dissolute may quickly be conveyed,
and that evil manners are as perfectly learnt without books a thousand other ways which can
not
be
stopped,
and
evil
doctrine
not
with
books
can
propagate,
except
a
teacher
guide,
which
he
might
also
do
without
writing,
and
so
beyond
prohibiting,
I
am
not
able
to
unfold,
how
this
cautelous
enterprise
of
licensing
can
be
exempted
from
the
number
of
vain
and
impossible

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attempts. And he who were pleasantly disposed could not well avoid to liken it to the exploit of
that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his park gate.
Besides
another
inconvenience,
if
learned
men
be
the
first
receivers
out
of
books
and
dispreaders both of vice and error, how shall the licensers themselves be confided in, unless we
can
confer
upon
them,
or
they
assume to
themselves
above
all
others
in
the
land,
the
grace
of
infallibility
and
uncorruptedness?
And
again,
if
it
be
true that
a
wise
man,
like
a
good
refiner,
can gather gold out of the drossiest volume, and that a fool will be a fool with the best book, yea
or without book; there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man
of any advantage to his
wisdom, while we seek to restrain from a fool, that which being restrained will be no hindrance
to his folly. For if there should be so much exactness always used to keep that from him which is
unfit for his reading, we should in the judgment of Aristotle not only, but of Solomon and of our
Saviour, not vouchsafe him good precepts, and by consequence not willingly admit him to good
books; as being certain that a wise man will make better use of an idle pamphlet, than a fool will
do of sacred Scripture.
’Tis n
ext alleged we must not expose ourselves to temptations without necessity, and next to
that, not employ our time in vain things. To both these objections
one answer will serve, out of
the grounds already laid, that to all men such books are not temptations, nor vanities, but useful
drugs
and
materials
wherewith
to
temper
and
compose
effective
and
strong
medicines,
which
man’s life cannot want. The rest, as children and
childish
men, who have not the art to qualify
and prepare these working minerals, well may be exhorted to forbear, but hindered forcibly they
cannot be by all the
licensing that Sainted Inquisition could ever yet contrive. Which is what I
promised
to
deliver
next:
that
this
order
of
licensing
conduces
nothing
to
the
end
for which
it
was
framed;
and
hath
almost
prevented
me
by
being
clear
already
while
thus
much
hath
been
explaining. See the ingenuity of Truth, who, when she gets a free and willing hand, opens herself
faster than the pace of method and discourse can overtake her.
It was the task which I began with, to show that no nation,
or well-instituted state, if they
valued
books
at
all,
did
ever
use
this
way
of
licensing;
and
it
might
be
answered,
that this
is
a
piece of prudence lately discovered. To which I return, that as it was a thing
slight and obvious
to think on, so if it had been difficult to find
out, there wanted not among them long since who
suggested
such
a
course;
which
they
not
following,
leave
us
a
pattern
of
their
judgment
that
it
was not the rest knowing, but the not approving, which was the cause of their not using it.
Plato, a man of high authority, indeed, but least of all for his Commonwealth, in the book of
his
Laws,
which
no
city
ever
yet
received,
fed
his
fancy
by
making
many
edicts
to
his
airy
burgomasters, which they who otherwise admire him wish had been rather buried and excused
in
the
genial
cups
of
an
Academic
night
sitting.
By
which
laws
he
seems to
tolerate
no
kind
of
learning
but
by
unalterable
decree,
consisting
most
of
practical
traditions,
to
the
attainment
whereof
a
library
of
smaller
bulk
than
his
own
Dialogues
would
be
abundant.
And
there
also
enacts, that no poet should so much as read to any private man what he had written, until the

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judges and
law-keepers had seen it, and allowed
it. But that Plato meant this law peculiarly to
that commonwealth which he had
imagined, and to no other, is evident. Why was he not else a
lawgiver to himself, but a transgressor, and to be expelled by his own magistrates; both for the
wanton
epigrams
and
dialogues
which
he
made,
and
his
perpetual
reading
of
Sophron
Mimus
and Aristophanes, books of grossest infamy, and also for commending the latter of them, though
he were the malicious
libeller of his chief friends, to be read by the tyrant Dionysius, who had
little
need
of
such
trash
to
spend
his
time
on?
But
that
he
knew
this
licensing
of
poems
had
reference and dependence to many other provisos there set down in his fancied republic, which
in
this
world
could
have
no
place:
and
so
neither
he
himself,
nor
any
magistrate
or
city, ever
imitated that course, which, taken apart from those other collateral
injunctions, must needs be
vain
and
fruitless.
For
if
they
fell
upon
one
kind
of
strictness,
unless
their
care
were
equal
to
regulate
all
other
things
of
like
aptness
to
corrupt
the
mind,
that
single
endeavour
they
knew
would be but a fond labour; to shut and fortify one gate against corruption, and be necessitated
to leave others round about wide open.
If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreation
and pastimes, all that is delightful to man. No music must be heard, no song be set or sung, but
what
is
grave
and
Doric.
There
must
be
licensing
dancers,
that
no
gesture,
motion,
or
deportment be taught our youth but what by their allowance shall be thought honest; for such
Plato was provided of. It will ask more than the work of twenty licensers to examine all the lutes,
the violins, and the guitars in every house; they must not be suffered to prattle as they do, but
must
be
licensed
what
they
may
say.
And
who
shall
silence
all
the
airs
and
madrigals
that
whisper softness in chambers? The windows also, and the balconies must be thought on; there
are
shrewd
books,
with
dangerous
frontispieces,
set
to
sale;
who
shall
prohibit
them,
shall
twenty licensers? The villages also must have their visitors to inquire what lectures the bagpipe
and the rebeck reads, even to the ballatry and the gamut of every municipal fiddler, for these are
the countryman’s Arcadias, and his Monte Mayors.

Next,
what
more
national
corruption,
for
which
England
hears
ill
abroad,
than
household
gluttony:
who
shall
be
the
rectors
of
our
daily
rioting?
And
what
shall
be
done
to
inhibit
the
multitudes that frequent those houses where drunkenness is sold and harboured? Our garments
also should be referred to the licensing
of some more sober workmasters to see them cut into a
less wanton garb.
Who shall regulate all the mixed conversation
of
our youth, male and
female
together, as is the fashion of this country? Who shall still appoint what shall be discoursed, what
presumed, and no further? Lastly, who shall forbid and separate all idle resort, all evil company?
These things will be, and must be; but how they shall be least hurtful, how least enticing, herein
consists the grave and governing wisdom of a state.
To sequester out of the world into Atlantic and Utopian polities, which never can be drawn
into use, will not mend our condition; but to ordain wisely as in this world
of evil, in the midst
whereof God hath placed us unavoid
ably. Nor is it Plato’s licensing of books will do this, which

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necessarily
pulls
along
with
it
so
many
other
kinds
of
licensing,
as
will
make
us
all
both
ridiculous and weary, and yet frustrate; but those unwritten, or at least unconstraining, laws
of
virtuous
education,
religious
and
civil
nurture,
which
Plato
there
mentions
as
the
bonds
and
ligaments
of
the
commonwealth,
the
pillars
and
the
sustainers
of
every
written
statute;
these
they
be
which
will
bear
chief
sway
in
such
matters
as
these,
when
all
licensing
will
be
easily
eluded.
Impunity
and
remissness,
for
certain,
are
the
bane
of
a
commonwealth;
but
here
the
great art lies, to discern
in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and
in what things
persuasion only is to work.
If
every
action,
which
is
good
or
evil
in
man
at
ripe
years,
were to
be
under
pittance
and
prescription
and
compulsion,
what
were virtue
but
a
name,
what
praise
could
be
then
due
to
well-doing, what gramercy to be sober, just, or continent? Many there be that complain of d
ivine
Providence
for
suffering
Adam
to
transgress;
foolish
tongues!
When
God
gave
him
reason,
he
gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam,
such an Adam as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift,
which
is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking
object, ever almost in
his eyes; herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence.
Wherefore
did
he
create
passions
within
us,
pleasures
round
about
us,
but
that
these
rightly
tempered are the very ingredients of virtue?
They are not skilful considerers of human things, who
imagine to remove sin by removing
the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing,
though some part of
it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in
such a universal thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the sin remains entire. Though ye
take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left, ye cannot bereave him of his
covetousness. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be
exercised
in
any
hermitage,
ye
cannot
make
them
chaste,
that
came
not
hither
so;
such
great
care and wisdom
is required to the right managing of this point. Suppose we could expel sin by
this means;
look how much we thus expel of sin, so much we expel of virtue: for the matter of
them both is the same; remove that, and ye remove them both alike.
This justifies the high providence of God, who, though he command us temperance, justice,
continence,
yet
pours
out
before
us,
even
to
a
profuseness,
all
desirable
things,
and
gives
us
minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety. Why should we then affect a rigour contrary
to the manner of God and of nature, by abridging or scanting those means, which books freely
permitted
are,
both to
the
trial
of
virtue
and
the
exercise
of
truth? It
would
be
better
done,
to
learn
that
the
law
must
needs
be
frivolous,
which
goes
to
restrain
things,
uncertainly
and
yet
equally
working
to
good
and
to
evil.
And
were I the
chooser,
a
dream
of
well-doing
should
be
preferred before many times as much the forcible hindrance of evil-doing. For God sure esteems
the growth and completing of one virtuous person more than the restraint of ten vicious.


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And albeit whatever thing we hear or see, sitting, walking, travelling, or conversing, may be
fitly
called
our
book,
and
is
of
the
same
effect
that
writings
are,
yet
grant
the
thing
to
be
prohibited
were
only
books,
it
appears
that
this
Order
hitherto
is
far
insufficient
to
the
end
which
it
intends.
Do
we
not
see,
not
once
or
oftener,
but
weekly,
that
continued
court
-libel
against the Parliament and City, printed, as the wet sheets can witness, and dispersed among us,
for all that licensing can do? Yet this is the prime service a man would think, wherein this Order
should give proof
of
itself. If it were executed, you’ll say. But certain, if execution be remiss o
r
blindfold
now,
and
in
this
particular,
what
will
it
be
hereafter
and
in
other
books?
If then
the
Order shall not be vain and frustrate, behold a new labour, Lords and Commons, ye must repeal
and proscribe all scandalous and unlicensed books already printed and
divulged; after ye have
drawn them up into a list, that all may know which are condemned, and which
not; and
ordain
that no foreign books be delivered out of custody, till they have been read over. This office will
require
the
whole
time
of
not
a
few
overseers,
and
those
no
vulgar
men.
There
be
also
books
which are partly useful and excellent, partly culpable and pernicious; this work will ask as many
more
officials,
to
make
expurgations
and
expunctions,
that
the
commonwealth
of
learning
be
not damnified. In fine, when the multitude of books increase upon their hands, ye must be fain
to catalogue all those printers who are found frequently offending, and forbid the importation of
their whole suspected typography. In a word, that this your Order may be exact and not deficient,
ye must reform it perfectly according to the model of Trent and Seville, which I know ye abhor to
do.
Yet
though
ye
should
condescend
to
this,
which
God
forbid,
the
Order
still
would
be
but
fruitless and defective to that end whereto ye meant it. If to prevent sects and schisms, who is so
unread
or
so
uncatechized
in
story,
that
hath
not
heard
of
many
sects
refusing
books
as
a
hindrance, and preserving their doctrine unmixed for many ages, only by unwritten traditions?
The Christian faith, for that was once a schism, is not unknown to have spread all over Asia, ere
any Gospel or Epistle was seen in writing. If the amendment of manners be aimed at, look into
Italy
and
Spain,
whether
those
places
be
one
scruple
the
better,
the
honester,
the
wiser,
the
chaster, since all the inquisitional rigour that hath been executed upon books.

Another reason, whereby to make it plain that this Order will miss the end it seeks, consider
by the quality which ought to be in every licenser. It cannot be denied but that he who is made
judge to sit upon the birth or death of books, whether they may be wafted into this world or not,
had need to be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and judicious; there
may be else no mean mistakes in the censure of what is passable or not; which
is also no mean
injury. If he be of such worth as behooves him, there cannot be a more tedious and
unpleasing
journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon his head, than to be made the perpetual reader
of
unchosen
books
and
pamphlets,
ofttimes
huge volumes.
There
is
no
book
that
is
acceptable
unless at certain seasons; but to be enjoined the reading of that at all times, and in a hand scarce
legible,
whereof
three
pages would
not
down
at
any
time
in
the
fairest
print,
is
an
imposition

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